Congress Leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir accused CM K Chandrashekar Rao of turning Telangana from the richest state in India to a bankrupt one.
Leader of the Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir accused Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of turning Telangana from the richest state in India to a bankrupt one.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan Wednesday, Shabbir Ali said that the mismanagement and maladministration by the TRS government had pushed Telangana into a financial crisis.
He claimed that the state not only lacked funds to spend on welfare and development schemes, it was also unable to pay salaries and pensions on time.
The notifications for 25,000 jobs, which KCR had promised to issue in July, too, had been delayed due to financial crisis, he said.
At the time of the formation of Telangana on June 2, 2014, the state was considered rich, with a revenue surplus of Rs. 7,500 crores. However, in the last 14 months the situation had reversed, and now the government was trying hard to borrow at least Rs. 5,000 crores to pay salaries and pensions, and clear the crop loan waiver dues, Shabbir Ali said, and mentioned that the government had recently borrowed Rs. 1,400 crores from the open market for 10 years at an 8% interest by participating in the State Development Fund auctions held by the RBI.
Shabbir Ali asked Finance Minister Etela Rajender to explain what went wrong with the projections that he had made in the last two budgets.
While presenting the first budget of Rs. 1,00,637 crores on November 5, 2014, Etela had claimed that the state would have a revenue surplus of Rs. 301.02 crores. However, the state government spent only about Rs. 60,000 crores in 2014-15.
Similarly, in his second budget presented on March 11 this year, Etela had stated that the budget of Rs. 115,689 crores for 2015-16 would have a revenue surplus of Rs. 531 crores. He had also showed a video clipping of the Chief Minister's statement made in the Assembly wherein the latter had claimed that Telangana was the second richest state after Gujarat, Shabbir Ali mentioned.
He also held KCR's negligent attitude responsible for the deduction of Rs. 1,274 crores by the Reserve Bank of India towards the IT liability of the AP Beverages Corporation Limited. "When the Andhra Pradesh government could manage to prevent the deduction of its share of Rs. 1,700 crores from the same account, why did the Telangana government fail to do the same?" he asked.
Shabbir Ali said that even if the RBI was to be blamed for directly deducting Rs. 1,274 crores towards IT liability, the TRS government needed to explain the reasons for the present deficit of over Rs. 5,000 crores.
The Congress leader also blamed KCR's magniloquence for the present financial condition. "The TRS government's tall claims before the 14th Finance Commission proved very costly for the state. The government projected that in the next five years, Telangana would have a revenue surplus of Rs. 21,972 crores. As against the receipts of Rs. 391,256 crores, the capital expenditure was estimated at Rs. 369,284 crores. Based on these claims, the Finance Commission did not approve any grant-in-aid to Telangana till 2019-20. Further, it also reduced Telangana's share of the Central Tax Divisible Pool (CTDP) from 2.91% to 2.48%. Contrary to this, the 14th FC included AP among the 11 revenue-deficit states, and it will get grants-in-aid of Rs. 22,113 crores. AP's share in the CTDP too has been increased to 4.30%," he said.
Shabbir Ali said that by making grandiloquent claims, KCR had directly benefited the AP government while causing huge damage to Telangana.
Shockingly, he said, the TRS government had remained silent on the actions of the RBI and the Central government, and did not even register a strong protest.
He said that the state government immediately needed at least Rs. 5,000 crores to clear salaries (Rs. 2,000 crores), pensions (Rs. 800 crores) and the second installment of the crop loan waiver amount (Rs. 2,250 crores).
The financial constraints had also delayed the issue of job notifications, as the recruitment of 25,000 staff would increase the salary bill by Rs. 900 crores.
The state's salary bill had already increased from the Rs. 18,400 crores at the time of the formation of Telangana to nearly Rs. 25,000 crores now - an increase of Rs. 7,000 crores.
Shabbir Ali demanded that the Chief Minister take a serious note of the state's financial position and initiate corrective steps.
"KCR's inexperience, mismanagement and maladministration are primarily responsible for the present crisis. At least now he should get serious in managing the state's finances," he said.
Stating that farmers across Telangana had lost almost 90% of their crops due to a bad monsoon, he asked the Chief Minister to give an assurance to the farming community so as to prevent further suicides.
He also said that the youth needed to be re-assured that they would be provided jobs as promised.